Cursed Seas Slot Review

Cursed Seas Slot Overview

I have seen plenty of pirate slots over the years, and a fair share of undead crews, yet Cursed Seas hits a different note. Hacksaw Gaming has gone for a moody, storm-lashed set-up, with a galleon fighting through jagged waves and a soundtrack that grinds away in the background. It feels closer to their darker stuff, so I treat it as a serious high-risk outing rather than a relaxed spin.

The game runs on a 5x4 grid with 26 fixed paylines, paying left to right from the first reel. You are spinning anchors, compasses, flags, pistols, skulls and four sharp-looking pirates, backed up by two types of chest that act as wilds. On paper the symbol values are not insane, but once cursed areas and multipliers kick in, Cursed Seas reveals where the real payoff can hide.

Cursed Seas Slot Information

In raw numbers, Cursed Seas gives me a sensible spread. Stakes run from 10p up to £100 a spin, with a default RTP of 96.22 percent, though operators can pick lower settings, so I always check the paytable. Volatility sits in the medium to high bracket, hit rate hovers around 37 percent, and the max win reaches 12,500 times the stake, which means some very swingy but tempting sessions.

Cursed Seas Symbols and Paytable

Cursed Seas keeps the symbol set tight. At the low end you have the anchor, compass, flag, crossed pistols and skull, paying roughly one to one and a half times your bet for five of a kind. The four pirate crew sit at the top, paying from three up to ten times. Five regular wild chests or five cursed chests can jump to fifty times your stake on a full line.

On top of that sits the lantern scatter, which does not pay much by itself but is your way into both feature rounds. In practice the line wins feel modest until a multiplier lands, yet I like how fair the low symbols are for a Hacksaw slot. You are not just waiting for bonuses, because a couple of overlapping cursed areas can turn an ordinary spin into something worth shouting about.

Symbols and Paytable

Symbol	Quantity	Payout
	Wild
	5	x50
	Special
	5	x50
	5	x10
	4	x5
	3	x2
	5	x5
	4	x2.5
	3	x1
	5	x3
	4	x1.5
	3	x0.5
	5	x3
	4	x1.5
	3	x0.5
	5	x1.5
	4	x0.5
	3	x0.2
	5	x1.2
	4	x0.4
	3	x0.1
	5	x1.2
	4	x0.4
	3	x0.1
	5	x1
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.1
	5	x1
	4	x0.3
	3	x0.1
	Scatter

Cursed Seas Slot Features

The core mechanic in Cursed Seas is the cursed chest feature. When a cursed chest lands and would form part of a win, every position from that chest up to the top of the reel becomes a cursed area. The chest then opens to reveal a multiplier between two times and two hundred times. Any win that touches those glowing positions gets multiplied, with values on different reels added together first.

In the base game this creates a nice ebb and flow. Plenty of spins just tease one chest that does nothing, then you suddenly get two or three cursed areas linking the same win and the total jumps. I have had modest sessions where these hits did the heavy lifting without even seeing a bonus, and other nights where chests lined up with premiums and things went completely off the chart.

If you play outside the UK, Cursed Seas comes with a full feature buy menu. BonusHunt spins cost three times your stake and make bonuses around five times easier to land. You can pay one hundred times for instant Sunken Treasure or two hundred times for Dead Men Tell No Tales. All three options carry high volatility and slightly tweaked RTP, so I treat them with respect.

Bonus Buy Feature

BonusHunt FeatureSpins Each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game.
Feature Cost:	x3 Bet
RTP:	96.21%
Volatility:	High
Sunken Treasure
Feature Cost:	x100 Bet
RTP:	96.26%
Volatility:	High
Dead Men Tell No Tales
Feature Cost:	x200 Bet
RTP:	96.33%
Volatility:	High

Sunken Treasure Bonus Game in Cursed Seas

Sunken Treasure in Cursed Seas triggers when three lantern scatters land in view, giving ten free spins. Here every cursed chest that appears will always open, create a cursed area and then stay locked for the rest of the round. If another cursed chest lands below an existing one the glowing strip grows downward, and all multipliers from opened chests are added into a single total multiplier above the reels.

Any win that runs through at least one cursed position gets multiplied by that running total, which can climb quickly when the game is in a generous mood. Two, three or four lanterns during the feature add two, four or six extra spins. I find this bonus can be streaky, yet when the board fills with cursed areas and the multiplier climbs, you get that lovely sense of pressure on every spin.

Dead Men Tell No Tales in Cursed Seas

Dead Men Tell No Tales in Cursed Seas is the more brutal feature and triggers from four lantern scatters, starting you on three spins. Only cursed skulls, tormented skulls, krakens and blanks can land. Each reel carries a multiplier that begins at one times. Cursed skulls add between one and five hundred to the reel above them and create a sticky cursed area from their spot to the top of that reel.

Tormented skulls multiply the current reel value by between two and twenty five, while krakens add their value to every reel at once. Any time at least one special lands, your spin counter resets to three, so the round only ends after three dead spins. When it does finish, the multiplier above each reel drops into all cursed positions below, then the game adds everything together and pays out against your stake.

Cursed Seas Slot Review Summary

For me, Cursed Seas is classic Hacksaw Gaming, just dressed in a pirate coat. The artwork is strong, the sound design grinds away nicely, and both bonus rounds can throw out frightening wins when the multipliers line up. On the flip side the adjustable RTP and spiky variance mean it will not suit every bankroll. I treat it as a slot for nights when I am happy to chase big treasure.

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